


Love is a gun

by Likerealpeopledo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of a Case, Dean Whump, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, accidental sports references, bottom!Dean, scared burritos, top! Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 03:29:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12202998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likerealpeopledo/pseuds/Likerealpeopledo
Summary: In a world where Dean can't Dean and Cas can't Cas, how are they supposed to keep themselves together without falling apart?





	1. A Case of the Yips

 

 

Dean has always considered his gun to be an extension of himself. He's been hitting targets since he was knee high to a grasshopper, a phrase that puzzles Cas to the point he practically _insists_ that Dean revise his statement, because the physics won’t add up, not even a little. ( _Dean_ , he says, all gravel and unharnessed power, _a grasshopper does not have a patella with which to measure your height, and the last time you were of that stature, you were perhaps a whisper of a chromosome within the spermatozoa of your father._ To which Dean can only stammer and reply, _Gross._ )

The ivory grip is smooth and cool against the seat of his palm and at this moment, there’s a massive shifter glaring down the barrel, a gooey arm flush against Dean’s throat, pinning him to concrete. He took a pretty impressive tumble when the shifter swiped his legs out from under him, so if he hasn’t left any chunks of grey matter behind, he’ll be shocked. Plus, he has no idea where Sam and Castiel wandered off to, if they found the college girl who’d turned up missing today, or if she’s even what’s zipped up inside this nightmare. What he does know is that the kill shot he’s attempting to take is standard and routine enough that he could do it in his sleep, but no amount of squeezing or squirming is physically working to propel the silver bullet out of the chamber.

It's not the first abandoned factory in Indiana that Dean has ever thought he'd die in, but he certainly isn’t prepared for it to be the last. His vision goes tight and lacy with the restriction of oxygen to his brain, and the last thing he hears as he fades slowly out of consciousness is a rather righteous explosion coming from somewhere over his head.

* * *

 

 

He's alive. This should be good news. Fingers of pain crawl along every inch of his body and his ears ring from whatever celestial bomb Castiel presumably tossed at that monster, but he's breathing and warm and blessedly alive.

Dean comes to, like dragging himself through molasses, surrounded by Sam and Cas’s concerned faces, the world’s most godawful velvet painting of a matador vanquishing a lopsided bull looming between them like a photobomb in a fever dream.

There’s still a box of dollar store dental floss discarded next to Dean on the rust-colored motel comforter.  It takes a second to register that it’s his own blood coloring the bedclothes.

“Well, that went great,” Dean croaks out.  He’s happy to hear that his voicebox wasn't left on the concrete floor of a burned out old aeronautics factory after all. His mouth is dry and his head feels like it's full of rocks but he's here and hey, look, it’s Cas and Sam. His favorites.

“Dean.” Cas, who appears to have lost his tie somewhere along the way, leans over like he's gonna reach out and stroke a hand through Dean’s mess of sweaty hair. Instead, he retracts it and sits on the offending appendage like he’s putting it in time-out for getting too grabby.

“Heya, Cas."

Sam glances between them for a second and appears to consider whether or not he’s going to make a smart remark, but apparently decides against it when Dean projects what he hopes is an IMAX-sized glower upward, in Sam’s general direction. “So, are you feeling okay?  We think that we were able to cover, you know, everything physical. The shifter got your torso and your arm pretty jacked up, and you definitely bumped your head, but um, Dr. Castiel over here has pronounced you, uh, what was the word you used, Cas?”

“Serviceable,” Cas supplies.

“Fantastic." Dean surveys what he can see of the damage. He flexes his left arm, which is where Cas’s tie ended up as a makeshift tourniquet. He grimaces and comes to the same conclusion as Cas for the time being. The adrenaline still hasn’t completely worn off, so he’s not gonna know how bad things are until that blissful, shining moment. Sam and Cas keep giving each other meaningful glances over Dean’s head, which is weird. At least he thinks they are, because a sound mind and unobstructed vision are not things that Dean currently possesses.

“And I don’t want to blame the victim here, but are we going to talk about the weapons issue anytime soon?”  Sam asks and both Dean and Cas turn their heads to look at him like he has his hair on backward.

“Huh?  What weapons issue?”

As Sam starts to tick events off on his fingers, Dean can feel the headache that’s building behind his eyes begin to double and pulsate. “Number one, last week, in Hobart, you claimed that you weren’t able to finish off the Baku because your finger slipped off the trigger,” he raises an eyebrow at his brother, as if he’s daring him to object. “And not two weeks before that, during that raid of the vamp nest in Evanston, you had a clear shot at lopping the female’s head straight off, and you chunked her in the shoulder instead. She almost bit you.”

“So put it on the blooper reel. Sam,”  he says as a warning. “I don’t have an issue. I had a couple of bad days.”

“Four days ago, you dropped your silver knife and impaled your own toe in front of a werewolf and yesterday,” Dean may have a concussion, but he can tell when Sam raises the fourth finger to count it off, “so help me, you swung at and missed the vengeful spirit of Tommy Flynn, but instead managed to conk _yourself_ a good one with the tire iron.”

“And Cas healed me, like a champ.” Dean lowers his eyes. “Both times.”

“Dean,”  Cas hovers closer, the worry lines around his mouth deepening. His eyes are impossibly dark and tired-looking and there’s some blood splashed across the divot of his chin and down onto the whiskers of his neck. “Something more than coincidence is happening here. And today, that was far too close of a call to treat this as some kind of joke. Have you angered anyone recently?  A witch, perhaps?”

Dean shrugs, “Hell if I know, man. I’m a magnet for that kind of shit.”

“You really think it's a curse, Cas? We haven’t been within a hundred miles of Rowena or her coven in months.”

“Witches don’t always advertise, Sammy.” Dean says, from his prone position. There isn't a muscle in his body that isn't crying out in abject horror and his neck feels like three hundred pounds of shapeshifting goo-monster used it to practice the balance beam. Plus, it’s taking all of his reserve strength just to keep his eyes open against the fluorescent motel lights as his brother and his best friend argue over his head about the nature of whatever it is that’s happening. If anything is even happening at all. He wishes everyone would just shut the hell up and let him sleep. “And I know it’s hard for you two to believe, what with me being so awesome and all, but there is an outside chance here that I’ve just been screwing up lately.”

Pacing as he considers the possibilities, Cas and his trenchcoat create a soothing westerly breeze as he traverses the worn carpet by Dean’s bedside. “While it’s possible, Dean, it is highly improbable. Something cosmic is clearly at play here, and we must explore as many avenues as we can in order to determine its root. You were mor--wounded tonight, and if it wasn’t for--”  He stands still, his fists clenched at his sides, “Thank goodness you’re alright."

Everything in Dean’s body groans, creaks and protests as he pulls himself into a sitting position.  Yep, he’s got at least three broken ribs.  It briefly occurs to him that the bodily harm that was just inflicted upon him should have been graced out by now, what with Cas’s blue-white beam of celestial light being far superior to even the priciest brand-name dental floss and Sam’s shaky sewing hand. “Hey, I love an episode of _Unsolved Mysteries_ just as much as the next guy, but anybody got a truckload of ibuprofen they wanna back up into my gullet right about now?”

Sam digs into his duffel and produces a brown prescription bottle of unknown origin and Dean swallows three of them dry. The uncoated capsules stick a little on the descent so he sputters and hacks out a few panicked coughs to dislodge them from his throat. Cas is fit to pounce, his face a mask of concern.  Once the medication appears properly ingested, Dean watches as Cas’s shoulders relax into their standard posture. He retreats to sag wearily against the rusted out radiator, directly beneath the crazed matador. They share matching haunted expressions in haggard, velvety faces.

All the time spent horizontal without so much as a happy ending has Dean wound incredibly tightly, and something about Cas’s demeanor isn’t sitting quite right with him. Through the magic of masculine bluster and stubborn willpower, Dean manages to cautiously maneuver himself to the edge of the bed and swing his socked feet to the floor. His view of the angel goes all wobbly and disoriented, so before he completely embarrasses himself and just passes out, Dean shifts his legs back onto the bed, lamenting his inability to remain upright with an audible sigh.

Cas, in his best impersonation of Florence Nightingale, bustles in and quickly shoves three pillows under Dean’s shoulders and back. He rearranges Dean so he’s propped up like one of the ailing grandparents in Willy Wonka, and then withdraws just as swiftly to his perch on the heater. There’s a moment that Dean wishes that Cas would ever just be capable of a vacant stare every once in awhile, because the tractor beams of scrutiny he’s got locked on him are making his skin itch.

The muscle in Cas’s jaw jumps, and Dean’s about to comment when Sam clears his throat. “So, uh, I'm gonna go take a look around town, see if there's anything lurking about that might have had a bone to pick with Dean.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Sam. I will...watch over Dean in your stead." Cas steps forward again, haloed by the lamplight.

“Yeah, be safe, and if a burrito happens to fall into your lap, don’t scare it away!”  Dean calls after Sam.  He scoots around to position himself more comfortably on the pillows.

Flashing Dean a thumbs up and a cardboard smile, Sam is barely halfway out the door before Dean finds himself with an armful of concerned angelic boyfriend.

Cas attempts to exhibit increased care in light of Dean’s more serious injuries, but his worry seems to be trumping mindfulness (plus he barely recognizes his own strength on a good day) because as Cas clutches at whatever he can hold, Dean is forced to convert a high-pitched yelp into the English language. “Oof, Cas, you're gonna suffocate me,” Dean says into a shoulder of bloodied fabric and the lobe of Castiel’s ear. “Hey, I'm alright.” Well, alright may be putting too fine a point on it, but mostly alright. “S’ just a flesh wound, see?”

“You di---- almost died while my back was turned.” The thing is, Dean knows it had to have been Cas that blasted that monster to kingdom come today and saved him from the fate of becoming its beloved chew toy, so Cas’s back couldn't have been turned for that long. Plus, Dean’s convinced that Cas comes on hunts primarily to act as Dean’s bodyman and not pay a lick of attention to the task at hand until it looks like Dean’s in some kind of mortal peril. He should be used to this shit by now. “You can't always do everything on your own.”

To be clear, Dean hasn't done anything on his own since he and Cas started whatever it is that they’re doing now; if it's dating, Dean hesitates to define it that way because that sounds like there's an option to trade out, and he ain't trading Cas for anything. Plus they haven't done any typical dating stuff yet. Dean almost snorts thinking about showing up at the bunker door with something lame like roses or chocolates, and how Cas would never in a million years want those things. Instead, he'd probably really get off on Dean handing him a waxy old honeycomb or a fluffy white dandelion, and he'd keel over with unabated joy if Dean ever ordered him one of those avocado stones Cas keeps texting him about that an artist in Ireland carves into intricate, ornate designs of things like fairies and wood nymphs.

He’d been planning to stare moodily at the horrific red foil wallpaper for a little while, but mid-turn, Cas catches his face in his hands.  Suddenly they're in his hair, lips mouthing at his chin. “You scared me terribly today,” Cas says into Dean’s mouth, which Dean is sure tastes like sucking on a handful of pennies.  It doesn’t seem to matter much to Cas, who continues to nip and peck until he’s better than partway convinced that Dean still exists on this planet.

“Hey, I scared _me_ today. Oh--” Dean is distracted as Cas runs his tongue over the pulse point of Dean's throat. His breath is hot on his neck before he arrives near and slowly bites at an earlobe. Ah, screw it, words don’t really seem necessary at the moment.

And maybe that’s what Dean’s enjoying the most about their growing relationship, getting to the point where words don’t matter, and he can finally _show_ Cas how he feels.

For him, talking things out has always been a minefield; actions, maybe they can be his saving grace.

The kisses become bruising, urgent, as if Cas is trying to consume Dean, just in case he tries to disappear again, maybe he'll still have a piece of him somehow. Cas slides his hands down Dean’s chest, over his sides, then swirls his tongue across the front of Dean’s teeth and then the roof his mouth. It's getting harder for Dean to get at oxygen with Castiel grinding up against him, devouring all his air.

Tugging impatiently at Dean’s bloody clothing, Cas indicates his displeasure with its continued presence. Dean shrugs gingerly out of his overshirt and allows Cas to pull the ripe and half-torn t-shirt over his head and pitch it off onto the shag carpeting.  The sudden onslaught of mobile dexterity finds Dean struck by yet another wave of dizziness.

Sure, he might only be lightheaded with want and desire from having Cas’s deft hands and tongue everywhere, but hell, it can't hurt to take a little breather just in case.

Dean seeks a brief respite by resting his forehead in the crook of Cas’s neck, and while he breathes through the spin, Cas’s fingers instinctively reach out to scratch at Dean’s nape, playing at the fine little hairs.

“Are you alright, Dean?  Should we stop?”  

Both those questions can’t truthfully be answered with the same head movement, so Dean opts for a shrug instead, which is probably the most honest answer anyhow.

The arm around Dean's back tightens, and Cas pulls him so that Dean is close enough to wrap his good arm comfortably around Castiel’s torso. They lay quietly, with Cas tracing tiny shapes against the expanse of his back, until fatigue and the codeine fog that Dean’s slowly wrapping himself into dictate that he’s not going to be able to keep his eyelids open any longer.

Cas senses the slowed pace of Dean’s breathing and raps him softly between the shoulder blades. “You shouldn't fall asleep if you’ve incurred a head injury, Dean.”

“No, no, I can sleep,” Dean slurs, all of his limbs sliding into a state that is more comfortably numb, “You just have to keep an eye on me, make sure I don't go comatose or nothing. And anyway, if you could stop being angelic Ambien, that’d help." Dean yawns and yanks at the wrinkled lapel of Cas’s trench coat, “I know you don’t need to sack out, but this is gross.”

There’s a wide streak of Dean's own dried blood across the khaki placket and some kind of gelatinous ooze smeared down the sleeve that Cas must have been too distracted to notice by now, because, like Dean, for someone who’s excellent at making messes, he sure hates dirt or grime of any kind.

“Why dontcha get busy shimmying out of this crap,” Dean suggests.

Grunting, Cas shifts, and begrudgingly surrenders his trench and suit coat so he's left in his shirt sleeves. There are still too many layers between them.  So even though he’s partially debilitated, Dean starts unbuttoning Cas’s starchy oxford on his own, latching onto any skin he exposes to light and air.  He sucks at his his collarbone, the top of Cas's chest, that little mole on his ribcage.

Cas squirms as Dean explores each new area with his tongue, and it's funny to think how natural this is, even after all those years of ridiculously stupid paralyzing fear that they couldn't ever have this. That they somehow _shouldn’t_. But here they are now, and it’s something so real and present that Dean feels like he could hold it in his hand, this perfect tangible intimacy that exists, and it’s _theirs_.

He’s licking along Cas’s collarbone, tasting the tang of sweat and blood and hard work, and he’s overwhelmed by the sense that he’d like to dig into the skin there. He wants to be able to get under it, see how it works, figure out how everything comes together. Dean doesn't like to think about how he can't really know the real Castiel that flickers under the skin and bone, or how he’ll always be at that same disadvantage, no matter how many years and experiences or how much time spent fighting side by side; there will always be some kind of disparity.

The sun had set hours before, and the room is starting to cool despite the heat in Castiel’s hands, Dean’s lips. “Dean.” Cas shivers.  He kisses his concern into the line of Dean’s scalp, then along the ridge of an eyebrow, and down to the bridge of his nose. “We shouldn't. You're concussed.”

Truthfully, Dean wouldn't care if he was in a coma at this moment if it meant that Cas was on top of him, and his lip was curled like that.  It's like he’s got a secret that he's not quite ready to tell but maybe Dean can extract it if he touches him the exact right way. And Dean knows when he's on the right track because Cas makes a breathless, panting noise as Dean strokes the outside of his pants.

“Jesus, Cas, you’re so fucking hot,” Dean whines into Cas’s open and hungry mouth, and since his own dick clearly didn’t open any exhaustion or head-injury related memo, he reaches back down to see if he can lure Castiel into feeling the same, not yet willing to take his eyes off of Cas’s open, expectant face.

Cas flushes at the compliment, so help him, this beautiful pink tinge that creeps from his chest to the tips of his ears. That's when Dean knows for a fact that two plus two equals _we’re fucked_ , and not in the way he had originally intended.

The roving hand at Cas’s belt buckle stills.

Weird gun thing aside, there's something important Cas isn't telling him about the hunt.  Like about how Dean ended up with a bloodstream full of old painkillers and dental floss in the meat of his swollen and tender-to-the-touch shoulder, why Cas isn't cleaned up and perfectly unruffled as per usual, or how Dean is even thinking about this at all, considering he just had 300 pounds of whatever the hell sit on his throat and slash at his chest cavity, rearranging vital organs like he was a med school practice cadaver on gross anatomy day.

It’s clearly something that Cas had intended to keep from Dean as long as possible, but maybe didn't do enough of the relevant breadcrumb trail pickup to keep Dean in the dark for a few extra moments. (And, come on, Dean’s got half a working brain right now and Cas has been purposefully sending his blood in the opposite direction for the last hour, goddamn him.)

Nausea roils in Dean’s gut at the possibilities, but he taps two fingers on the knob at the top of Cas’s spine anyway. “All right, the jig is up. Spill.”

Cas is frozen, unblinking. “How did you--But I didn’t--I had to--There was--” Dean almost has to clap him on the back to help him to spit it out. “I had to make an ex-exchange.” Stammering Cas is not a Cas that Dean is terribly familiar with, since generally when he does a boneheaded thing, he firmly believes that he's done it for all the right reasons, and he's confident in those reasons, however misguided.

“I’m gonna assume it wasn’t a toaster that you exchanged back there. Goddammit, Cas. What the hell did you do?” Okay, that lands harsher and maybe even louder than Dean intends. He feels terrible about the way Cas’s eyes drop, dejected, but he’s only barely comprehending what Cas is trying to tell him.

“You--you weren't breathing, and--”

“Then you fucking give me mouth to mouth, asshole.”

“Dean," Cas pleads. “The area was inexplicably--unexpectedly warded, and none of my powers were working. I wasn't able to effect any change on him, on you. The shifter, it had you cornered, away from us, and we couldn't get to you fast enough, to drag you out, away from the sigils so I could...There was so much blood, and your eyes…” He trails off, eyes wounded.  It breaks Dean’s heart. “Dean." He tries to turn away, but Dean stops him with a light hand on the side of his face.

“Okay. It’s okay, sweetheart." He drops his hand then to rub at Cas’s back with those big, wide circles he likes sometimes when they're laying in bed together. The times they're trying to be quiet because Sam is sawing logs three feet away, and Cas still wants to be touched, held. 

Cas shakes his head, “No, it’s not.”

“Hey, hey. Could I be reading you the riot act right now if I was still in three pieces? No. I'm here, man. You got me.”

Cas takes a deep breath to steady himself, and curling his fingers into the front of Dean’s shirt, he seems to be able to call up the strength to continue as he minutely tweaks his posture, a trace of the old Angel of the Barn in his sudden righteous rigidity. “I know I have you, because I comported myself both swiftly and decisively.”

“Decisively, huh?  And what did you decide, exactly?”

“I decided to act. The unfettered grace of angel is still a desirable commodity in parts of Hell, and Crowley--”

Dean interrupts, “You wouldn’t have." Castiel looks like a man who absolutely did. “Seriously?  Crowley? It has to have been a setup, or a trap, and you, you just do-si-doed right into it."   Dean tries to grabs at an eyelid to do a cursory black-eye check, but Cas dissuades him with a cross look. “You're not a demon now, are you? Am _I_ a demon again? Crap.”

“No, Dean, neither of us are demons. I just--”

“You just shot first, asked questions later.” Dean finishes, because that’s a fucking learned behavior that the now former angel picked up from _him_ , and he wonders when everyone around him is going to stop throwing their lives away just to save his sorry ass.

“Sam was upset and I was upset, and--we all have to make sacrifices, Dean.” Intellectually, Dean knows that Castiel isn't able to be in his head anymore so it probably speaks more to how predictable Dean is that Cas can read his mind even without heavenly intercession.

“Not that. Never that. C’mon, man, you can't give up who you are so that I--Jesus, Cas. Next thing you know, you'll be giving birth to our nephilim baby and I'll be burying you out back because you changed to suit me and it killed you in the process.”

When Cas squints and tilts his head in complete befuddlement, the familiarity of the gesture causes something to uncoil in Dean’s gut. “I don't--that's very specific to someone's story, I'm sure, but not to ours, Dean. First of all, I lack a uterus, either human or angelic.”

“The point is,” He wants to be patient with Cas, he really does. But if Dean thought he was sore and tired before, he's fucking Moses forty days and forty nights wandering in the desert levels of exhausted now. He quickly mourns the loss of the post-hunt, now apparently post-mortem, handjob he was about to participate in and then chased away like a moron with his mostly uncharacteristic healthy and open communication. “We talk about this shit. We weigh our options. Together. Put the team back in Team Free Will, right?”

“It's difficult to complete a cost-benefit analysis with the recently deceased, Dean.”

That one hits Dean right in the solar plexus. “Yeah, okay. You got me there.” There’s a part of his brain, the hunter part, that’s telling him that he should be charging out the door, drawing devil's traps, something, anything to defend Cas’s honor, make another even exchange. Crowley’s not a total dead end; now, if it had been Lucifer, shit would be harder. “I mean, it’s not like we can’t somehow get it back. That douchebag’s always open to wheeling and dealing if it means he eventually gets the upperhand. All hope isn't exactly lost, it's just, y’know, hiding.” Behind a big steaming pile of bad choices, he thinks, but Cas is having a hard enough day.

Cas releases a long, full breath and situates himself against the headboard, staring down at his own lacerated knuckles. He meets Dean’s eyes again. “I don’t know that I require that same hope, Dean, or even if I harbor the desire to return to my former being.”

“But being human sucks. We're weak and we're slow and it hurts when we do this.” Dean jokily attempts to make a fist and the tendons in his arm summarily reject his request. “It’s the worst, man. Don’t reduce yourself to this.”

“Being human isn't something I've reduced myself to, Dean.”

“Good. ‘Cause when you start to miss who you used to be, I don't want you to be upset.” He leaves off the _with me_ but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think it. Because what he doesn’t need are more roads to lead Cas straight out of his life, and this certainly feels like it has the potential to be one of them.

“Perhaps you lack the understanding that my grace is not the definition of who I am." It’s impressive all the different ways Cas manages to call him a dumbass sometimes, but Dean can still appreciate the basic sentiment. “Yes, my lack of grace does certainly change _what_ I am, but please do not think that I have traded anything about my identity. The basic tenets of my--for want of a better word--personality will not change. It was a choice that I made because I was not ready for you to see you go and I would never willingly choose to live without you, so if that was what it took, I gladly gave it." Part of Dean expects the admission to be tearful, like they’re characters in a telenovela, but Cas is stonily resolved, a brief glimmer of what he’s promising hasn't changed.

“You didn't  have to--Fuck, Cas, you don’t have to lay down on every bomb to save one guy. You--you’re eternal. I’m a speck of dust on the radar of your existence and I can’t be worth--”

“You are worth everything, Dean,” Cas snaps, eyes suddenly blazing, Dean’s words the gasoline that fuels them. “You are worth more than everything, and after all that you and Sam and I have been through, we deserve this. I deserve this. I deserve you. To have you, whole, and by my side, and that is my prerogative.”

Dean is temporarily stunned into speechlessness. Goddamn, Cas is gonna be the death of him. And okay, poor choice of words, considering.

Cas’s fingers trace absently over the constellation of freckles that dusts Dean's chest and shoulders, even as he carefully avoids the gruesome trail of claw marks that don’t look like anyone has yet bothered to disinfect them. It’s becoming clear that Cas’s default stoicism is quickly bleeding into something far less measured and controlled, and Dean knows he's seen some shit in his millennia, so whatever went down today had to have made an impact. Not to mention, Cas is newly human, and with humanity comes both urination and vulnerability, two things Castiel generally abhors. The touchiness will likely be at the forefront, probably for a few weeks yet, so Dean’s gonna have to learn to suck up some of his less sensitive instincts for a little bit and just roll with the emotional tide.

“I shouldn't have been--Hey, it's okay. You did a good thing, even if it feels really fucking weird right now. For both of us."

Cas scratches at his chin. “We excel at weird.”

“I just worry, is all.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I could get you hurt now. _I_ could hurt you.”

“Do you want to hurt me?” Cas asks in a soft voice.

“No, of course not, but you're, and don't take this the wrong way, but you're more frail now. Human beings are frail." And Dean ought to know, since he got used as a punching bag today and didn't actually survive, legally speaking. “It's harder to be human than a fucking superhero, man, and you just threw away the cape.”

“Well, this human just saved your life, so I'd appreciate your deference to my choice.”

Dean reaches for Cas, then, tries to collect him into his arm(s). “I promise, I’m not arguing with you right now, but it doesn’t always have to be your job to protect me.”

“That job has to fall to someone, Dean, and I would prefer that it be me.” Cas tightens his grip on the back of Dean's neck and presumably attempting to collect himself, looks past Dean to the sword-shaped lamp on the bedside table for a few minutes until he says very quietly and with utmost reverence, “Dean, this lamp is extremely phallic.”

Dean laughs so hard that tears stream out of his eyes and his tender rib cage aches with every guffaw, but he doesn't care because even the barest hint of a smile that plays on Cas’s lips is worth every sharp inhale.

* * *

 

Sleep has almost come to Castiel and Dean when Sam slams back into the room.  He looms over them, slowly taking in the sight of Cas pressed up against Dean’s back, Dean’s ankle flung sideways over Cas’s.

Opening one eye, Dean shoots his brother a dirty look. “And look at this, with no burrito, either. I thought I taught you better than to come back to an injured man without a snack.”

Sam scowls. “C’mon, Dean. We’re in East Jesus, Nowhere on a Sunday night. You're lucky we found a place to sleep that wasn't the backseat of the Impala. And I am sorry that I interrupted you guys, but dude,” He holds up a crinkled soda can that looks like it just went six rounds with Rambo in _First Blood_ , “Your gun is fine. It was definitely not a mechanical failure.”

Not appreciating the implication that the failure is _him_ , Dean struggles to extract himself from Cas’s vice-like hold, and settles for propping himself on his elbow when Cas refuses to relinquish him. Warm fingers stroke at the base of his spine and surreptitiously dip into the waistband of his jeans as he speaks to his brother. Dean squirms a little as Cas strokes lower, and when he gasps, surprised, Sam raises a suspicious eyebrow. “I swear to you,” he squeaks, “It was like there was Vasoline on the sucker. Everytime I’d get my finger on it, it’d just fucking slip right off." When he goes to demonstrate, his shoulder starts to throb like his heart suddenly jumped into it.  He’s half-tempted to grab the knife out of his sock and puncture the tendon like an old tire just to let some of the pressure out.

“And I am saying that something else is up. Look, I know you guys are comfortable, and it’s been a day from hell, literally, but I think we need to get this figured out sooner than later. And added bonus, since we’re far enough outside of town here, I don't see anyone calling the local sheriff complaining about gunshots in the middle of the night if we have a little target practice.”

Dean indulges in the last few seconds of just being close to Castiel, and the knuckle Cas runs affectionately but with unmistakable finality over his hipbone says that he’s doing the same thing. “Ugh, Sam. You’re a dick," Dean says, but he levers himself out of bed anyway.

It’s nothing short of laborious to get Dean back into a clean flannel and boots given the state of his injuries, and he wholly regrets not insisting on a shower while he and Cas were still alone in their room. Cas helps him to shuffle to the bathroom so Dean can splash some water on his face and relieve himself before Sam proves whatever it is he’s trying to prove about Dean’s weapon and hunt related troubles.

He doesn’t bother with any shirt buttons, and while Cas is behind a closed door washing up, Dean turns the ire he couldn’t quite direct at Cas toward his younger brother. “So do you have anything you’d like to share with the class, Sammy?”

Sam looks a little trapped, but he’s not close enough to Cas to compare notes, so he just stands there holding his laptop a minute too long to be natural. “I, uh--”

“He told me what happened, Sam. I know.”

“Okay. So why are you asking?”

Dean grimaces as he lifts his arm into what should be an accusatory point, and immediately vows to utilize fewer hand gestures while speaking, at least until it feels like his rotator cuff won’t fall off if he does. The room tilts and he sways mightily. “Ow. Shit. Ow. Mayday.”

Sam drops his computer on the tiny motel desk and swoops in to steady Dean and then guide him to another rest on the corner of the bed. “Okay, now let me have it. Hit me with your best shot. Fire away.” He doesn't even bother to hide his canary-eating grin, he's so fucking proud of himself.

“Shut up.” It’s harder to be threatening from four feet beneath your target’s chin; he doesn’t know how Rowena does it on a daily basis. Sam even seems to have pulled himself to his full height just to spite Dean. “You shouldn’t have let him do that. He’s not gonna...he’s gonna regret it, and then he’ll be stuck and it’ll be me that he blames, not you. Out of all of us, aren’t you supposed to be the level headed one?”

“No, that’s my job with you, Dean, not Cas. I love him too, but I am not his keeper. And do you really, in your heart of hearts, think that I could have somehow talked him out of it? Cas isn’t generally into considering long-term consequences if it means your life is on the line, you know.” Yeah, there have been about a thousand examples of that in recent memory, so okay, Sam isn’t wrong. “Not to mention, I completely agree with what he did and how he did it.”

The toilet flushes and Sam looks visibly relieved to have the conversation cut short as Cas emerges from the bathroom. “And _that’s_ why you should be watching Game of Thrones.” Dean finishes unnaturally loudly.  If Cas sees through his charade, he doesn’t call Dean out on it in company.

It hurts more to throw an arm around Cas’s shoulder for support than it does to walk, so Dean leans heavily on the former angel as they hobble out into the lush, grassy field behind the semi-abandoned Drake Motel. In the low light of the parking lot, Cas’s skin is pallid and his eyelids are heavy.  He’s already in desperate need of a shower and a shave, and barely capable of holding up his own weight. Dean starts to wonder exactly who’s propping who here.

It’s late summer stretching into fall, and South Bend is close enough to the lake that once dusk hits, the temperature drops about fifteen degrees, enough to make Dean regret his choice not to button up. The sky is a rich blanket of stars and even though the motel is right off US-31, there’s a complete absence of traffic thanks to a recent highway revamping that’s shifted everything off and to the south.

“It’s beautiful tonight.” Cas says quietly into Dean’s ear, as Dean admires the ethereal quality of the gas station lights against the navy-black night sky. Everything is glowing and smudged; it looks like an impressionist painting he saw on a school field trip once. “I wish we would have slept outside."

“We still can.” Dean squeezes the elbow he’s using for leverage, and this is at least the third time today he’s almost forgotten that Sam both exists nearby and is highly judgemental, so when he wants to drop a kiss onto the bolt of Cas’s jaw, he leans away. “Aw, fuck it,” Dean mumbles and bends back, dropping the kiss, quick and clumsy, at the edge of Cas’ downturned mouth.

He turns back to his brother, who’s arranging and rearranging what looks to be every monster-repelling weapon known to man on the closed trunk of the Impala. “I don’t get it, Sam. How’s this gonna help exactly?  Unless you’ve been stowing a couple of ghouls in the trunk for target practice, I don’t see what we’re proving here.”

“We’re isolating the variables. Maybe this is just a glitch that's happening in hunts, or maybe it’s carried over to all weapons, or even better, maybe it hasn’t, but we’re not going to know unless we try." Sam gestures to Cas, who has groaned his way into the driver’s seat to fire up the engine, “And if any officers happen to roll by, perhaps a gunshot could be better explained as the backfire of an older model car’s engine.”

“He didn’t mean it, girl,”  Dean strokes at the side mirror of the Impala, and then turns back to Sam, “How dare you. My Baby doesn’t backfire.”

“Okay, well, let's see if you do.” Sam rolls his eyes and hands Dean a shotgun, the double-barrelled sawed off that he’s used for just about every salt round he’s ever loaded, and waits patiently off to the side.

The magazine doesn’t budge.

“Uh, Dean, maybe if you pump it?”  

Dean narrows his eyes at Sam and tries not to aim directly at him.

Next, he’s handed a pistol, then a revolver, and with each one, Dean attempts to fire, and his intended result is never achieved. He swipes at the rivulets of sweat beading on his forehead with the inside of his good elbow.

“You know, I’ve heard that when hunters start closing in on 40, sometimes they have more trouble getting their shots off. It’s possible, too, that sometimes they even end up just shooting blanks." Sam says, teasing. Then, after a beat, in a television announcer’s voice, “Projectile dysfunction is real, but it’s preventable.”

“I will stab you in your sleep, Fuzzball.”

“Yeah, okay, Butterfingers, good luck trying," Sam retorts, digging into the waistband of his jeans and handing over his Taurus. “Here, try mine instead. If it’s really a curse, maybe it’s just the weapons that you usually prefer that got whammied.”

When he does, his fingers and hands tremble so badly that he practically drops Sam’s gun into the tall grass. He can feel the veins in his neck bulging with embarrassment and rage as the heat rises from his chest.

“Hey, it’s okay. It happens to everyone.”

“I can still kick your ass, Sammy,” Dean warns in a growl.

Sam gives him a turn with nearly every weapon in the arsenal (plus Dean gets Cas’s angel blade somehow wedged in Baby’s grill and Sam has to Sword in the Stone it for ten minutes while Dean frets about paint scratches and Cas kvetches about the stupid blade getting returned intact) until Sam arrives at the grenade launcher. Dean just waves him off with a dejected pout.

“Not today, Satan. Not today.”

Sam goes contemplative for a second and runs both hands through all seventy-two blessed inches of his hair. “Oh my god, do you remember?  This is just like Chuck Knoblauch having to throw underhanded during the Yankees ‘99 season. You just came down with a classic case of the yips, dude.”

Dean’s gonna pull every hair out of his head, one by one, if Sam doesn’t shut up and stop talking about dumb baseball shit. “I’ll fucking Chuck Knoblauch your--your--block off.” He says, through gritted teeth.

“What is chuck garlic and why are we threatening one another with it? Are there also vampires here?” Cas, who has mostly been trying not to doze off on the steering wheel during Dean’s public undoing, questions from the driver’s seat.

Sam laughs long and loud enough to give Dean a little chortle (but only after explaining that Knoblauch means garlic in German), though not enough to strip the severe expression from his face. “He’s a who, not a what, man. And he was a Yankee first baseman who developed this...throwing problem all of a sudden and he made so many errors during the season that they decided he must have had the yips.”

“I assume you are going to explain yips to me now, and they don’t involve barking dogs.”

Dean loves his brother, he does, but that look he gets when he’s about to start pontificating on a subject that he’s listened to three whole podcasts about, Dean could just slap it right off his giant face. Provided his hands aren’t considered weapons anymore and they actually still _work_.

“It’s just…”  Sam begins, assuming that professor posture that makes Dean’s blood start to boil. “It’s basically a psychological issue that happens to professional athletes, usually when the pressure gets to be too much, or if they make an easy mistake, and then they start to question their own abilities, and it just starts to snowball. For some guys, it’s crippling, career-ending stuff. Others recover just fine. And it’s not just baseball players either. Tiger Woods even got ‘em once, around his chip shots.”

“Chip yips,” Cas repeats, and moves his mouth like it’s physically uncomfortable to say.

Dean is stuck somewhere back at _career-ending_ and _crippling,_ but leave it to Cas to have priorities. “I have the yips,” he laments, sinking onto the fender of the Impala and legitimately trying not to cry.

“Well, I guess I’m relieved you didn’t go the Knoblauch route and hit anyone’s mom in the face with a ball before we figured it out.” Sam ambles closer to Dean. Cas must decide that no one should be nearer to Dean than he is, so the car door slams and suddenly, he’s joined Dean on the bumper. Cas hooks two fingers through Dean’s belt loop and leans into him while Dean stares forlornly out into the clear Indiana night.

“What am I supposed to do about this?  I mean, they shoot horses, don’t they?  I’m useless.”

“No one is going to shoot you, Dean.” Cas ponders for a moment, biting his lip. “Well, they might. Since you can’t shoot back."

“Awesome.”

Sam wanders away to start cleaning things up, and Dean is left alone with Cas, who nestles into his good arm. “I’m sure that Sam will have ideas on ways that this can be rectified. He’s very bright, and he seems knowledgeable about this particular affliction, so I’m sure we’ll figure it out. We always do.” Castiel smooths his hands across the tops of his dark pants and then dips his chin against Dean’s shoulder for a few seconds as if in contemplation. “Perhaps if you started small.”

“Small? Like what?”

He chews it over for a moment. “Sometimes you use sarcasm as a weapon. You could always begin with that."

“Great. That’s a fantastic idea.” Dean gives him a sardonic smile. “See? It’s working already.”

Something close to hope flickers across Castiel’s face until he realizes Dean’s just being a jerk. “This doesn’t seem likely to be resolved by our usual means, so I thought it might be helpful to brainstorm,” Cas scolds.

“Yeah, kinda. It’s just that we need some better ideas. No offense.” He knows that Cas is just trying to be an all around good guy and problem-solver, which is kind, if not ineffective. “Okay, but what am I really, if I can't manage to kill a single monster?”

“Well, for one, you're an excellent dancer,” Cas says with the straightest face ever to straight, and goddamnit, if he didn’t join the Kick Dean While He’s Down party.

Dean would pout but that expends too much energy, and he still isn’t entirely certain that Crowley was a gentleman and put all of his organs back in the right places so he feels like that's something he should conserve. “Well, both of you can keep yukking it up, because now I’m a class one liability, and we’ve got enough troubles on our plates that this ain’t a bit of funny.”

Cas nudges against Dean’s shoulder with his own, looking at him with very serious blue eyes. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Dean, if Sam and I have to wear entire bandoliers full of weapons in order to keep you out of harm's way."

It feels inappropriate, and a touch ungrateful, to point out that he’s already died once today on their watch, and no one else has any mystical powers left to trade for his life. Unless Sam is back into demon blood, which, sweet tap dancing Christ, Dean does not want to get into right now.

“And so instead of charging into the fight, I’m just supposed to stand there and look pretty?”

Cas, backlit by the lights of the Sunoco gas station across the street, gives him a lascivious once over and licks his lips rather pointedly as he scans Dean’s face and body, “I cannot help that genetics produced those eyelashes to exist in tandem with those lips, Dean. I can only reap the benefits.”

A groan comes from two feet behind Dean, and Sam emerges from a shadow near the fence line carrying a cache of weapons that could get them twenty to life in most states. “Jesus, you two, get a room.”

 

* * *

 

 

At the pink light of dusk, Dean wakes to find two finger tips pressed to his forehead, and a disquieted Castiel peering with great intent at his face.

“What’s going on, Cas? Everything okay?”  

Even in the dim light, Dean can see the crestfallen look on Castiel's face. Cas shakes his head and doesn’t respond.

Gently cuffing the wrist that’s looming in his eyeline, Dean brushes a light kiss against the newly relaxed fingers. “Was I dreaming?”  Settling the hand he’s just removed from his face against the plane of his chest, Cas huddles closer, wrapping himself so he’s cradling most of Dean’s head and shoulders in his arms.

“No, Dean." Cas smooths at Dean’s hair, kisses his forehead, his temple, a half-open eyelid; Dean’s not sure who the comforting gesture is meant for, him or Cas. “I thought perhaps I would have some residual grace, if I could help--”

A little bit of unchecked emotion rises in his throat and Dean has to swallow past it to speak. “No dice, huh?”

“No dice." Cas repeats, still stroking at Dean’s hair.

It's hard to tell if either of them falls back to sleep after that.

 

* * *

 

 

 


	2. Love is a gun

 

 

Dean has no idea what the fuck he's supposed to do with himself.

If there’s anything worse than a mystical curse, it’s a psychological one, and it’s made doubly crappy by the fact that for as much as Sam and Castiel want to help, Dean is the sole proprietor of said psyche and bears the brunt of the entire healing process.

Where Dean can usually punch and stab his way out of a bad mood, whether it’s brought on by guilt or depression, that tried and true remedy probably won’t do much to help him here, and is almost certainly not recommended for keeping a relationship thriving (at least not as per the advice columns that Dean definitely did not read online).

A lazier person could just sit back and watch the relationship atrophy, and Dean can't decide which side of the coin he falls on.

When Sam isn’t busy unearthing new hiding spaces in the bunker under the guise of hunting down Crowley for a renegotiation of terms, he’s very much in Dean’s face, playing the little armchair psychologist that could. Dean gets lost in a flurry of TED Talks and YouTube videos and neatly highlighted articles that come from both his brother and his boyfriend and it only ever results in Dean getting irritated and leaving a room. Dean's not sure which one of them managed to trick him into meditating once, and if Dean ever walks into the bathroom again and sees another affirmation mantra written on the mirror, he’ll shave Sam’s head in his sleep for sport.

Even with the tension that kindles between them, it seems like anywhere Dean is, Cas follows, and vice versa, but neither of them recognizes that perhaps some of their more minor arguments could be avoided if they just left each other alone for five minutes every once in awhile.

Fine, Dean _realizes_ it, he just doesn’t want to.

At dinner, Cas pushes his fork through a sad little salad of leafy greens that lie limply on his plate, and gazes woefully at the the massively overstuffed cheeseburger that Dean’s painstakingly prepared and about to tuck into with a flourish.

“I'm worried about all the red meat, Dean,” Cas frowns.

Dean stops, burger held in mid-air, and pretends to engage in some kind of thoughtful consideration of the matter. “Alright then,” he announces, “Go ahead and take up a collection. Save the meats.”

Cas harrumphs and mutters several epithets in broken Enochian, and something that sounds exactly like the word _cholesterol,_  as Dean takes an emphatic bite and burger juices trail traitorously down his chin.

For the first time since they returned to the bunker, Cas is first to leave a room, with a violent scrape of his chair.

After dinner, Dean falls asleep on the couch by himself watching a documentary about the Vietnam War.  He dreams of the jungle and the heat baking his skin, and when he wakes with a start, Cas is there to wordlessly lead him back to the bedroom and settle Dean into bed with a kiss brushed lightly over his sweaty temple.  

 

 

The next morning, Cas steadfastly cares for each of Dean’s wounds individually, as he does every morning, afternoon, and evening, adhering to a militaristic schedule of triple antibiotic ointment and scar-reduction gel applications.

“Eyes up here, Cowboy,” Dean says as Cas gestures for him to unbutton his shirt. 

This elicits an eyeroll that can be seen from space, but Cas pushes forward anyway.  He squirts a quarter-sized dollop of goop into his antiseptically clean hands since he scrubs in like a freaking surgeon before he even thinks about touching any portion of Dean’s broken skin. “I have to watch what I’m doing, Dean.”

Dean hisses as Cas brushes some freezing ointment over his sensitive nipple. “You could warm that shit up, you know.”

“I could," Cas says, uncapping the next tube and applying some of the gel to a cotton swab with a clinical eye. “But I’m not.”

Craning his neck, Dean watches as Cas warily dots the balm along the arcs and ridges of his slowly healing abrasions. “You’re not doing it right,” Dean says to the top of Cas’s bent head, “You should--”

Cas snaps up to meet Dean’s eye, cotton swab held aloft the same way he used to hold his angel blade. He slams the bag of medicine onto Dean’s lap with all the same celestial fire he typically reserved for vanquishing Heaven’s douchiest foes. “Fine, then,” Cas grits out, “do it yourself."

Dean stands alone, questioning each and every one of his previous life choices, as Castiel storms off into the War Room and a door slams emphatically in the distance. Dean knows that if Cas could have zapped himself to the Falklands in that moment he would have, and as a result, Dean’s never been so glad for small favors.

 

Not so glad that he doesn’t need to pout for a few hours afterward, but at least until he finds that both he and Cas have inadvertently decided that possessing clean laundry is tantamount to pride.  Their earlier interaction lies between them like a cadaver on an autopsy table as they sort and fold.

Dean picks up Cas’s suit pants, the black polyester festooned in small fuzzy balls of lint and fabric, and glances over at Cas, who's holding a pair of Dean’s fed pants and a damp, recently used bath towel. “You’re killin’ me, Smalls," Dean says as he forcibly yanks the towel out of Cas’s grasp.

 _"_ Did you need that, Dean?”  Cas responds, tone as icy and slippery as a pond on a mid-winter day. “I thought it was customary to ask when one needed something.”

“No, I don’t need it, and I don’t need it splish-splashing around with my last pair of good pants, either, unless I want to look like a walking lint trap the next time I roll up on a case.”

No less steely, Cas responds, “That was exactly how I wanted them to look.  I find them much more aesthetically pleasing that way.” He proceeds to wad and push everything, up to and including the offending towel and Dean’s pants, into the washing machine, snapping the door shut with a boisterous clang.

Incredibly, Dean resists the urge to open the lid, edit its contents, and start the entire load over; he does, however, sneak a heaping capful of fabric softener in behind Castiel’s retreating back.

Mentally exhausted and temporarily out of ways to haunt Cas, Dean spends the rest of his day on his own. After a brief nap, he makes a plodding trip outside to grab the mail and skims through the two questionably helpful articles on sports psychology that Sam left open on his laptop browser. He opens a beer, eats a sleeve of cookies that was left unattended on the kitchen counter, and belches loudly enough that he accidentally conjures Sam from his hidey hole.

“Jesus, Dean,” Sam says, waving a hand in front of his face to mitigate some of the trailing fumes, “you might still have a career in munitions with that gas. Ugh.”

“Shut up.” Dean takes a another drink, and consummate older brother that he is, burps at least half the alphabet at Sam until he’s sufficiently disgusted and hanging over the sink, gagging. “You got any leads yet?”

“On Crowley?” Recovered, Sam shakes his head, and cracks open a beer of his own. He takes a long pull. “Cas asked me not to look, so I stopped.”

Fortunately, the bottle in Dean’s hand doesn’t shatter under his fingers, even though he’s squeezing hard enough that theoretically it should be turning to dust. “Fucking--”  His feet work independently of his head, and he’s halfway to the door before he knows where he is.

Sam stops him with a light hand to his shoulder. “Dean, don’t. Let the guy live.”

“Sammy." He needs to go to Cas, shake him by the shoulders, shout at him, something. But he knows that will only exacerbate the already precarious situation they’re living in, and he’s not suicidal. Instead, he decides to head down to the shooting range to blow off some steam, as the tension in his body seems to have grown just as thick as his rebuilding scar tissue.

Maybe that all that rest he’s been getting recovering from his mini-resurrection has done more to reverse the curse than any of Sam’s mumbo-jumbo has, because he really, really, really needs to shoot something in the face right now.

Still vibrating at much too high of a frequency, he bumps into Cas coming from the opposite direction, the white Walgreens bag of balms and salves dangling jauntily from his wrist.

“It’s been eight hours, De--” Cas's new digital wristwatch interrupts by emitting a series of high pitched beeps and it takes more than a few seconds of their screeching for Cas to remember how to make them stop. He pushes at a few more buttons and Dean can see that he’s managed to advance the hour on the time, too. “Okay, _now_ it’s been eight,” he peers at the watch, “No, nine hours. How did that get away from me? At any rate, we need to reapply these before your skin becomes too dry, because if that happens, we’ll be utterly unable to visibly reduce the appearance of scars, old and new."

Even though he’d kind of like to strangle him, Dean can’t help but smile. Castiel is an advertiser’s dream. “You been reading the boxes again, champ?”

“I haven’t been sleeping very well.” Cas admits with a shrug, forcibly steering Dean into the shower room by his elbow so that he can start his ministrations. Guiding him in front of the sinks, Cas starts his work by attempting to undo the top button of Dean’s flannel.

“A guy could use a little foreplay, jeez." Dean knocks his hands away roughly. “I got it, I got it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you always got it,” he mumbles, and Dean is surprised that Cas is even capable of any non-elucidated speech. It’s kind of a breakthrough in humanity bootcamp. “Hold still. You’re behaving like a petulant child.” Cas hisses, trapping Dean in place with one strong hand clamped down on his shoulder.

Adjusting to stand ramrod straight, Dean mimics Cas’s traditional soldier-like stance, and stares straight over the fluff of Cas’s bedhead and into the showers. “You’re a petulant child,” Dean mutters.

“I rest my case,” Cas replies, sighing the sigh of the greatly put upon. He deftly spreads Neosporin over the raised pinkish skin on Dean’s chest with a swift, mechanical motion. Swiping at an errant smear with the edge of his fingernail and then rubbing his hands together to redistribute the excess cream, Cas readjusts Dean’s shirt and gives him a little pat of dismissal. “There, you’re all finished. Go forth and bother someone else.”

“Someone’s getting mouthy.”

“I’ve learned from the master.” Castiel gives a little bow and disappears down the hallway before Dean can pursue any of his own line of questioning.

There’s at least a three minute span where Dean’s legs decide they just don’t want to work, and Dean stands mired to the spot, attempting to parse the cause of the hollowed-out-with-dread sensation that’s starting to take up residence in his still mending rib cage.

_How could you not know that he’s not sleeping?_

So Cas wasn’t sleeping, definitely barely eating, and when was the last time he’d been somewhere that wasn’t “at Dean’s side” or Walgreen’s?

It's not like the man needed to be fed with an eyedropper and wrapped in swaddling clothes, but someone probably should have been double-checking that he got three square meals a day or if he'd been having any of those crazy Purgatory Leviathan nightmares that Dean knows he sometimes gets; but if Dean said that he had been doing any of those things, he’d be straight up lying.

Fucking A, Dean’s an asshole.

That idiot saved your life, he thinks, you should be taking care of him, not the other way around.

Gun in his hand, staring down the target at the end of his lane, all he can picture is stupid, hopeful Cas gamely appearing at exact intervals to rub all those gross, medicinal-smelling creams on his wrecked body, only to get yelled at and pushed away, time after time.

No matter how badly Dean treats him, he just keeps showing up, expecting a different result.

The thing is, Dean knows that’s the definition of insanity, but it’s the kind of insanity that saved his life, and it’s probably going to end up saving both of their lives in the long run. Or at least he hopes it will, because otherwise Cas’s eternal willingness to support Dean is going to slowly erode into resentment, and even though he can’t flit off to Heaven, Earth is just as fucking big and scary, and neither of them can afford for him to take that chance.

And the fact that Cas doesn’t even want to try to get his grace back means that something’s shifted; something’s different. They’ve been trying to make this work for such a short time, really, not much more time than Dean’s been struggling during hunts, that it seems like it would be even easier for Cas to walk away if Dean can’t set things right. With a twinge in his gut, Dean practically trips over himself to get back to the living quarters of the bunker.

He still can’t walk as fast as he’d like, and he’s breathless by the time he gets there, but he finds Cas busily folding an assortment of jeans, flannels, boxers and undershirts in his bedroom as he hums what sounds like the tune to Nirvana’s _In Bloom._

Bending at the waist, Dean rests his hands on his thighs to hasten his recovery from the semi-brisk pace so soon after his post-resurrection sedentary lifestyle. When Cas looks concerned at all the non-sexual sweating and panting, Dean waves him off and gestures to the clothing spread out in neat, even stacks across his tightly made bed.

“How'd you even manage to wear all that stuff already? You've been a real boy for, what, a week?” Dean asks between wheezes.

“Almost two, now.” Cas corrects. Those first few days were certainly a blur of overwrought emotions and codeine, after all. “And I’ve been asking myself the same thing, Dean. Why do we insist on dressing in so many layers?  Is there not climate change? Has the core temperature of the earth not risen to the point that we could forego wearing a second and sometimes a third shirt? Plus a warm jacket! Ridiculous.”

Dean doesn't have an answer ready for that one other than he’s totally on board with seeing Cas in more t-shirts, because his arms are ridiculously hot, and great, now his apology is going to turn into a seduction (or at worst, some masturbatory fodder for later). Which is fine, but he had been hoping to aim more toward making the poor guy feel like the sacrifice he made (and continues to make) for Dean was worth all this mess, not openly objectify him.

“You're ridiculous.” Nope, not a great start.

“As are you.” Cas volleys, his torso stiffening.

“No, no, I don’t want to fight, I swear.” Dean holds his hands up in mock surrender and some of the preemptive aggression melts out of Cas’s shoulders. The only problem is, now that he’s here, Dean isn’t feeling quite as brave. There's too much at stake. “I came to, uh, help finish the laundry. I know how much you crammed--” _No, no, we’re going for the glass being half-full_ , he reminds himself, “I know how much work you’ve had to do with me being laid-up, so I thought I’d lend you a hand.” He splays his fingers and wiggles them to demonstrate their renewed utility. “You need some help putting this stuff away?”

He shrugs, still probably unsure if he should trust a man who so recently saran-wrapped his toilet seat as a welcome-to-humanity hazing ritual. “That would be nice, Dean. Thank you.”

Look how easy it is for him to say it, Dean thinks, and the fact that Cas seems so grateful for something that Dean owes him the courtesy to do without asking makes him feel a little sick to his stomach. His guilt grows teeth as he watches Cas sort and match a pile of socks that probably belongs to both of them.

Eager to look helpful, Dean picks up a stack of recently folded boxer briefs and presses them into Cas’s top drawer, then turns around and picks up Cas’s freshly laundered trench coat, which is thrown haphazardly over the the straight-backed chair near his bed. He shakes it out by the shoulders to dispel some of the larger, more virulent wrinkles and a scrap of paper flies out, hits the floor, and slides halfway under the bed.

Cas’s back is turned as he hangs up his three flannel shirts and the ugly cranberry-sauce colored hoodie that he can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how many times Dean balls it up and throws it in the garbage.

Dean bends over to grab what he dropped, and has to steel himself against the edge of the mattress when he realizes that he’s holding a freshly laundered photograph of himself, Sam, and Cas.

In it, a still-angelic Castiel squints against the bright sunlight, and Sam seems to still be speaking to whomever is taking the picture. Dean’s face and body are angled toward Cas, not really looking at the camera either, and even in profile, his smile is as wide as the sky behind him, his gaze--an imprecise mixture of pride and affection and even a touch of wonder--is focused solely on Cas.

“You carry this with you?” Dean offers him the folded photo.

Cas leans over far enough that he’s pressed against him from the top of his shoulder to the back of mid-thigh, and peers down at the picture. “This was the day we took that detour and saw the world's biggest ball of twine. It captures the three of us nicely, don't you think?”  

“I could still kill stuff back then, so that was definitely nice." Dean says as Cas huffs a small laugh into his neck. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to take you back there--you know, murder some stuff, see some string."

Tapping the photograph, Cas disconnects himself from Dean, and turns back to match up another pair of socks. “Not to be ungrateful, but once you’ve seen one big ball of twine, you’ve really seen...a big ball of twine.” He concludes. “Perhaps we could find another novelty sewing item to visit.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure." Dean can’t stop staring at his own face, and how he doesn’t even recognize the peace he sees in it.

Cas, fiddling with his rolled up ball of dress socks, turns to meet his eye. “Is it not alright with you that I have that?  It was you that had given me the idea. I saw how you carry that picture of your mother and yourself as a child and I thought--I thought it was customary to carry pictures of those who are beloved.”

“It--it is." Dean knows his brain will catch up with his mouth eventually, or his mouth will catch up with his brain. Something’ll give if he just waits it out.

Cas frowns and gives him a quizzical look. “Well, then I don’t understand why you look like I’ve done something wrong.”

“It’s just...it’s us, y’know.”

“I do know, Dean,” Cas says, as if Dean is still suffering some kind of traumatic brain injury. “I selected it specifically because of that fact. There was a very nice picture of a family that came with my wallet, and I was just going to keep it, but I could tell that their souls were posed and barely even seemed to know each other. They definitely weren’t related, despite representing that way. It was all extremely disappointing when I had to find something else to put in their place, actually. I had purchased that wallet explicitly because of their smiles, the joy on their faces." Cas studiously looks down, as if focused on a stray thread on the sock he’s holding, “Because at that time, I did not possess much joy of my own.”

Jesus, Dean needs to grovel at Cas’s feet for months to make up for all the shit he's inflicted upon him the last few years. “That’s really--”  
 

Tired of waiting on Dean to finishing with his sputtering, Cas gently coaxes him to sit down on the end of the bed. The mattress gives under their weight and Cas moves his hand to rest on Dean’s leg. “You’re still upset with me.”

Dean shakes his head. “No, no I’m not. Not even a little. I wasn’t. Well, I was, when Sam said that you called off the dogs, but I just-- I think that I’ve been giving you too hard of a time lately, and I shouldn’t be. I'm sorry for that. You saved my bacon again, and I’m still--maybe since I’m not able to hunt, you know, maybe I’ve been, you know, subconsciously trying to suffocate your feelings or my feelings or something so that I can feel like I’m actually--I don’t know--in control."

Cas’s mouth opens and closes and then just goes slack with shock at Dean’s sudden astuteness. “Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?  This ain’t just a hat rack, you know." Dean thumps on the top of his own head as if he’s demonstrating its ripeness. More gently, “I’ve had a lot of time lately to think, okay?”

Cas nods, probably picturing all the times that he would have loved to have had the power left to smite Dean for the imbecilic things he's done and said over the last few weeks. “It just...it does cause me some level of consternation because I fear that some of what you’re angry about is that I can’t be--what you would normally expect from me. The person you were looking at in this photograph."

“Cas, I don’t care if you can’t time travel or fly or knit my bones back together with your fingertips. That stuff, yeah, those are all fun party tricks, but that’s not what I need from you. And I definitely couldn’t tell you what I normally expect from you. Normal, I guess, is one thing I don’t expect. Just--be you. I’m good with you.”

It feels like it’s been a lifetime since he’s seen it, but Cas smiles that slow, awkward smile that is far too rare and far too precious, and a flicker of pride blooms in Dean’s chest that he was the one that managed to put it there. _Score: Dean_ 1 _Cas 1,000,000,000_. “Okay, Dean,” Cas beams, “I can do that.”

“Good. It’s just--you keep giving up everything for me and I keep acting like a crapbasket and for once, I want to, y’know, stop the cycle.” He runs his thumb back and forth over the back of Cas’s hand, over his knuckles and his smooth nails. Even Cas’s normally calloused hands are soft from all the lotion he’s been religiously applying.

“I appreciate that. And I know how hard it is for you to allow someone to take care of you. Your role has always been that of a caretaker, so you’re understandably out of sorts.”

“Fuck, I didn’t even think of that so now there’s one more thing I need to apologize for. Thank God you’re not a chick or else I’d have you swimming in an assload of diamonds right about now if I was ever planning to get in your pants again."

Cas gives him a look that says _you’re not making any sense. “_ You can always borrow my pants, Dean. Anytime, no gemstones required.”

“Yeah, thanks. Ditto for me." Dean pushes a hand through his hair and huffs out a laugh before he grabs Cas’s hand and detours back to his original point. “But hey, I really want you to know that you didn't do this for nothing. You didn’t save me for nothing.”

“No, of course I didn't save you for nothing. I saved you for me." Cas says, eyes bright with unadorned sincerity.

“Um.” And the speechlessness returns.

“That night wasn’t supposed to be the end of us, Dean. It couldn’t have ended with me trapped in another room, watching your blood seep into cement." He shudders. “And it didn’t, because I knew that we needed more time. Of course, I know now how selfish my actions have been, but if you asked me if I would take them back, I would absolutely not.” Cas says as he settles a palm against Dean’s formerly mangled and now blessedly mint-floss free arm.

“It’s not you being selfish, Cas. I know that it’s not. It’s…”

“I believe that it’s love,” Cas finishes for him, and then stares down at the inanely symmetrical loops of his bow-tied sneakers as the flicker in Dean’s chest ignites, and spreads as if by electric current from his fingertips and down the toes that are now curling in his boots.

They sit in beatific silence for a long moment until Dean manages to recover the power of speech. “Yeah,” he tilts Cas’s head up, so that he has full view of Cas’s denim-blue eyes and that new, human, ridiculously wide smile, “So _that’s_ what that is. Love."

Of course, there’s always that voice in the back of his head that’s screaming _You can’t handle this_ over and over on a manic loop, but Dean forces himself not to give it any credence. This is Cas; he loves him, and has for a very long time. If he does ruin things, at least he fucking tried. He’s not gonna yip out on the love of his life, that’s for damn sure.

As if he’s been tuned into the entire inner monologue and its positive result, Cas leans forward and kisses him then, soft and sweet and easy. “Did you have any further thoughts on the matter?” He tastes like Dean’s off-brand cinnamon toothpaste and up close, Dean can see the patch of darkened stubble that Cas missed when he shaved this morning. He chafes a fingertip against it, inhaling the scent of the new aftershave Cas had said reminded him of chrism oil and new beginnings when he bought it at the drugstore during their last supply run.

“Well, now that you mention it--” Dean shifts so that he’s flanking Castiel with both arms, and pushes him to recline on the bed, a bundle of blue jeans cushioning Cas’s head. “I was also thinking how I haven’t quite thanked you properly.”

The tentative hand Cas had laid on his shoulder grasps the front of Dean’s shirt and pulls his chest down to meet his. “Ah, I see. That’s quite a difficult matter to consider. You know,” Cas says, serious as anything, nose to nose with Dean, wearing the slyest of smiles, “I have missed the human orgasm.”

“Well, you're in luck because I'm offering a special on human orgasms. Two for the price of one.”

“And the price?”

Dean kisses him, then, deep and slow and full of promise. Dean’s long past the point where the mere bulge of Cas’s dick against his thigh is enough to make him pant, but that, accompanied by Cas gleefully sucking a bruise under his left earlobe is definitely causing him to head in that general direction.

Cas’s bed is still half covered in laundry, and neither one of them is animal enough to knock it to the ground after all that effort, so they kiss and grope their way down the short hallway, shedding clothing as they go. Dean doesn’t want to picture Sam following the sexual breadcrumb trail of their dropped shirts and socks, but that’s the risk he runs living with two guys with healthy libidos, and fuck Sam, they’re all adults here. Plus, Dean likes having home court advantage during sex so he’s not the one doing the walk of shame afterward if Cas doesn’t feel like having him spend the night.

One knee pressed into the memory foam, Dean wrestles with the elastic of Cas’s boxer briefs until Cas is completely nude, and supported entirely on his own forearms over Dean’s prone form. His round, gorgeous ass and angular hips arch above Dean’s, his erection bobbing expectantly against his stomach. Cas’s lips are red and swollen from the drag against the stubble on Dean’s neck, where he’s just worked to leave a trail of bite marks that will not easily hide behind the collar of Dean’s shirts when he’s attempting to impersonate a normal functioning adult in the coming days.

At this angle, Cas is too far away, so Dean clamps both hands on Cas’s pelvis and seizes his hipbones to close the gap, “Get back down here, I need you for this,” he says, and their bodies slam together with a resounding thwap that leaves Dean a little dazed from the impact.

Castiel slides down Dean’s torso and down to his legs, where he begins to lick a feather-light path up Dean’s inner thigh and hopefully, eventually over to his sac. He stops every few inches and just breathes hotly against Dean’s skin, coaxing nonsensical sounds out of Dean’s throat as he goes. Dean knows that he’s not going to be able to withstand the languid pace for much longer, unless Cas intends to torture him by causing him to writhe in delicious agony under his fingertips for the rest of the night, _that fucking sadist_. His hair tickles Dean’s open legs as his tongue delves deeper, and finally, thank fuck, artfully into his crease. Dean has to stop himself and stare at a particularly uninteresting spot on the ceiling in an effort to slow down and get re-centered, because watching Cas move is getting to be more than he can handle.

Even without his powers, Cas can still manage to conjure a bottle of lube out of thin air (or, more likely, from its place tucked between the mattress and the box spring for easy access), and Dean finds his cock twitching and glistening with pre-come at the mere _click_ of the opening lid.

As Cas first works in one deft, lubricated finger, and then another, Dean finds his hips thrusting upward in attempt to include his own fingers in on the action, and get things moving so that he can have all of Cas inside of him, faster, and with more urgency.

Cas knocks his desperate hand away and snaps, “Mine,” and Dean is forced to grab at the base of his own cock with his left to prevent a premature release, just from the low, possessive rumble and the gentle scrape of Cas’s teeth against his skin.

He teases and licks at Dean’s rim, and as he strokes unhurriedly against a nerve there, Dean’s grabs a handful of Cas’s hair and pulls hard. Cas emits another little moan into the moist warmth of Dean’s hole and Dean pounds a fist into the mattress to release some of the almost unbearable pressure as it reverberates through the sensitive area. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“I will, Dean. Patience." Cas says, without any patience whatsoever.   

Satisfied that Dean has sufficiently melted into the bedclothes, Cas kisses another light trail up the other man’s body, his three fingers now working to prepare Dean for his cock. Dean pulls Cas’s face to his, sucking at his bottom lip, desperate for his close attention. “Come on. You have to fuck me, Cas,” Dean pleads.

If Dean’s learned anything about Cas in the last few months, he’s learned that the former angel does not like to be rushed during sex, but traditionally, Dean’s been the top, and he can make Cas come apart with a look and a well-placed swipe of his tongue. This is a whole new ballgame, with Cas completely in control, and Dean’s a little pissed off that he literally actually died (quite a few times) without doing this as often as possible. It’s his turn to come apart now, and much to his utter surprise, the relinquishment of control feels much more like liberation than it does confinement.

As Cas sinks into him, Dean whimpers with the sheer burning pleasure of his slow plunge. Cas may be fully ensconced inside of him, but Dean still feels out of sorts and disconnected.  He won't be satisfied with their current level of intimacy until he’s able to pull Cas gently by the chin and center his face over his own. “Hey look at me,”  Dean pleads, “Look at me.”

Cas’s eyes have been closed, or have been anywhere but on Dean as he holds himself on his elbows, working slowly to bring Dean to the edge. He opens one eye, suspicious, and then the second, when he sees Dean gazing serenely up at him from below. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean’s toes curl with the sound of his name pronounced as benediction. “Hey, Cas." There’s sweat on Cas’s brow and upper lip, and strain reads in his mouth as he moves above Dean, inside him, encompassing him, everywhere. Dean reaches up to push Cas’s hair off of his forehead, stroke at his flushed cheek. “I just..I needed...I just need--” Dean stammers.

The physical tension in Cas’s shoulders relaxes somewhat, even as he continues to thrust into Dean unhurriedly, and lowers his face even closer, their noses and foreheads touching. He twines his fingers with Dean’s and pushes their clasped hands down to rest on the pillow by Dean’s head. “I know, Dean. I know." He quickens his pace, then, with one long hard thrust, releases.

Dean holds him through the aftershocks and kisses at his neck and shoulders, and when he’s more thoroughly recovered, Cas reaches down to finish Dean with three long strokes. Dean kisses Cas, then, deep and slow, until his heart can stop hammering in his chest and slowly his breathing returns to normal. They continue that way for some time, exchanging silent apologies and reassurances.

_I’m sorry._

_I love you._

_I need you like you need me._

_I’ll do better._

Their kisses deepen and soften as their lips carry the unspoken words between them into the night, until Cas idly rubs at the back of Dean’s neck with his curled knuckles and Dean finally falls asleep.

For once it’s not nightmares that wake Dean throughout the night, but the desire to touch Cas, simply because he’s there and simply because he can.

 

* * *

 

 

Well before Dean’s natural clock (his rumbling stomach) can wake him, he drifts from solid, blissed out post-orgasm-and-cuddles sleep to full alertness, his mind latching onto one new purpose that he can’t ignore.

Dean nuzzles gently at Cas’s neck and pats at his back, and achieving no ultimate result of independent movement, he eventually manages to slide out from underneath his slumbering partner through an increasingly intricate series of shimmies and sidles.

Sneaking over to his desk, Dean rummages through the drawer to extract the package that he’d retrieved from the mailbox the day before. He unceremoniously slaps a bow onto the cardboard, signs the card with a simple, _Love, Dean_ , in his uniform block print, and arranges the whole thing on his empty pillow, next to Cas’s sleeping head. Pulling on the closest pair of sweats, which happen to be the super soft ones that Cas has been living in lately, he steals out of the bedroom on light feet.

Five minutes later, he finds himself standing in the middle of the shooting range, staring down the paper target that's been mocking him for a week.

“You’re going down, asshat,” he mutters to the silhouette, and sets about field-stripping his gun. He’s not leaving anything to chance and something about the routine itself makes him feel accomplished anyway. As he finishes knocking the carbon off the feed-ramp, the door behind him opens with a loud creak.

“You should put some oil on those hinges, they're almost as loud as Baby’s.” Cas enters, looking sleep-rumpled and infinitely sexy, a pillow crease still evident on his cheekbone. He’s dressed in one of Dean’s worn out black t-shirts and boxer briefs, since Dean stole and is currently wearing his own pants. “I thought I might find you here."

“Sorry, couldn’t sleep.” Dean taps at his forehead. “Still got a lotta junk rolling around upstairs."

Cas creeps forward. “Well, imagine my panic when I rolled over and saw that you had been replaced by this.” He holds up the toy car that’s currently dwarfed by the bow Dean had clumsily wrapped it with and approaches to stand next to him at the counter. “After I ruled out any rudimentary spellwork, I assumed that you left it there in imitation of the pagan symbol of gift-giving, Santa Claus. Is it Christmas?”

“Is it December twenty-fifth?”  Dean rolls his eyes. “Did you even read the card?”  

Cas shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. I was apprehensive about opening it at all, because historically, the only things I have ever received in an unsolicited cardboard box have either been a children’s board game, or on two separate occasions, a human heart.”

Dean will ask later about those occasions, because one of these days he’s gonna corner Castiel about what the fuck went down during the Middle Ages. “Shit, now I’m really sorry that I didn’t get you a human heart, Cas."

“No apology necessary.”

Dean’s brain flashes with other, more absurd possibilities down the road, and scenes at actual Christmas with Jody, Donna, Alex, and Claire and all the ways that things could go really, really wrong. “Hey, let’s say we make a rule right now that if it comes out of a human body, we don’t wrap it up with a bow.” He mentally indexes things that have potential to emerge from the human body. “Or even bring it to the party.”

“Deal.” They shake on it. “And while it’s not any variety of organ, thankfully,” Cas raises an eyebrow at Dean, as if he’s daring him to argue, “It is a perfect replica of the Lincoln Continental Mark Five, circa 1978." Cas pushes the toy, its ribbon now as lopsided as his smile, across the counter of the firing lane and it rolls until it’s finally stopped by the open bottle of cleaning oil.

“So do you like it?” Dean nudges closer, inhaling the comforting combination of Cas’s sleep-warm skin and the range’s gunpowder. Dean had been wracking his brain for something to get Castiel as a gift ‘just because’, even before the hunt in South Bend where everything went bonkers, and he’d found a website that made exact models of cars to spec. He’d even been able to get them to make the matching license plates.  The express shipping had been an absolute bitch toward his fake credit limit, though.

Dean scratches bashfully at the back of his neck as the blush creeps up and into his hairline. “The guardian angel carved out of an avocado thingie is coming special order from Ireland or some shit, so, uh, keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks, okay?”

He's not going to tell Cas about the box of expensive chocolates (“Eat the peppermint ones first, they're strong,” the clerk in the white smock had warned ominously) he has stashed under the bed, too, just in case this car thing had landed like a lead damn balloon.

“Dean, this is--this is--I love it,” Cas flushes with a glow as bright as his former grace or one of his particularly nuclear temper tantrums.

“So you understand why I gave it to you?”

“Because I have been mourning the loss of that car ever since Metatron defiled it with his lactose intolerance." Cas gives him that _I’m with stupid_ look again, and Dean worries now that he’s introduced the concept of gift-giving that for his next birthday, he’s getting a t-shirt that says _Stupid_ with an arrow pointing straight at his face. “Was there another reason?” 

Sometimes being in a relationship with someone as obtuse as Castiel is actually more of a benefit than an irritant, because pretty much anything Dean says at this point could be construed as romantic. The bar is unconscionably low. “It’s kinda got a couple of purposes, so sorry it’s not, you know, bigger. Online, it looked like it might be bigger. That’s what she said,” he blurts reflexively and winces because even with Cas being Cas, ain’t no way that was romantic.

“Anyway,” Dean continues, looking down at his hands. _No pressure, remember?  It could have been a severed organ and it’d still be smiles all around._ “It’s a combo ‘Welcome to Humanity/Thanks for Trading Your Grace/Sorry I’ve Been Such a Douche/I’m Proud to be Your Boyfriend’ kind of...gift. Which, by the way, Hallmark does not make a card for, so good luck finding one next year when we celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion.”

“I love it and you, very much." Cas clutches the Continental to his chest, like a little kid with a brand new teddy bear, and something vital clicks into place in Dean’s head. An epiphany of sorts.

_For fucks sake._

_I’m the avocado pit that some sap carved into a fucking moonbeam._

He can't believe that it's taken him this long to figure it out. Human or angelic, Cas loves stupid things. Stupid, idiotic, ridiculous things that other people don't even think twice about, like pictures of fake families and gargantuan beige pimpmobiles and giant balls of twine.

Infuriating in his capacity for hopefulness and misguided optimism, Cas doesn't care if other people haven't found a use for something, or if someone else refuses to recognize an object as more than the sum of its parts, because _he_ thinks it's beautiful; _he_ thinks it's useful.

And sweet fuck all, if Dean Winchester isn't his very favorite stupid thing; even when he himself feels pretty useless, most of the time.

It’s taken Dean all this time to realize that when Cas looks at him, he doesn't see the burned-out broken down lawnmower that Dean sees; he can only see the possibility that one day, that broken lawnmower will actually whir to life and run.

Dean’s face burns with the sudden clarity. “I, uh, love you too,” he responds quickly.

It’s not like he’s never said that to Cas before. In fact, he was the one who said it to Castiel first, when they finally realized that they should stop being the least platonic besties ever and start knockin’ boots. Granted, it did initially slip out as he was in the throes of a fairly epic orgasm, because back then, Cas was still an angel who could zap out entire power grids with one good come.

Cas moves closer, pressing his mouth softly against Dean’s temple. “This has been a very fraught time, so please, don't be so hard on yourself.”

“What if I want to be hard on--” The surly warrior look Cas shoots him halts Dean’s double entendre in its tracks.

“I told you to stop being so hard on yourself." Castiel repeats, serious as the heart attack that Dean is totally going to have thanks to all that evil red meat, and he picks up the gun that Dean had abandoned when he entered the room, reassembling it with whiplash inducing speed and accuracy. It’s sexy as hell, and Dean knows he’ll be stowing that memory away for a lonely evening in the indeterminate future. “Since I wasn’t aware we were exchanging any tokens of appreciation tonight, this is my gift to you." Castiel hands over the completed Colt and looks at him impatiently. “Now get shooting.”

“I’m a headcase, remember?”

“I remember.” Cas braces himself so that Dean is caged by the length of his two arms. “But I believe that I can help you with that.”

“You really think so, huh?”  

“I know so.” Cas begins to manhandle Dean into a more correct posture, jabbing and prodding at his limbs until they’re to his exacting specifications, like Dean’s a recipe for a prize-winning cake that he's baking.

“What if this doesn’t work?” Dean asks as Cas positions his bare feet on either side of Dean’s, running a hand from the bend of his knee up to his thigh, so that he’s standing straight and tall, bowlegs be damned.

“Then we’ll keep trying.” And damn if that isn’t exactly the quick and dirty sum of Dean’s entire past as a hunter and future as Castiel’s lover. Cas hadn’t even meant it to be the revelation that it was to Dean, but there you had it: _Then we’ll keep trying. The official soundtrack to Dean and Castiel’s relationship._

He shakes the contemplative mood from his mind and isn’t even surprised at how easily he lets his heart burrow in the warmth of Cas’s love and devotion, doesn’t even make gagging noises at himself for thinking of the words. Cas, meanwhile, steadies him with a hand on his hip, brings his other hand up to straighten and align Dean’s elbow with the center of the target. His breath is hot on Dean’s neck, and Cas drags his stubble across his neck as he moves, resulting in Dean's brain going offline for a quick second thinking about what he'd like to do with Cas right now that doesn't involve shooting a gun. “Just relax.”

Dean feels every muscle in his own body tense in anticipation of another spasm or jerk that’ll prevent him from completing his intended task. “Remember how I told you that when you demand that I calm down, it actually makes me less calm? This is the same thing except you're using different words.”

Cas sighs and reproachfully knocks into the back of Dean’s knee with his own. “Dean, please.”

“Sorry,” he says, because maturity has reached his brain and his heart but apparently hasn’t made its way to his mouth yet. He shakes some of the tightness out of his chest and shoulders and squares up behind the gun. Last week, holding his gun felt like he was squeezing his boot and expecting a bullet to pop out. Today, it feels natural; he's holding his .45, Cas at his back. It feels right. “I don’t want this not to work."

“It will work. But not if you don’t pull the trigger." The _let go, Dean_ is unspoken. Cas inhales slowly and exhales even slower, and Dean shivers as it travels all the way to the base of his spine. “Just do it the way you’ve always taught me…”

It occurs to Dean then that maybe he really is more than just the producer of the highest count of monster bodies, and while a gun has long been a physical symbol, an extension of his hunter self, Cas has done more to cement his place in Dean’s life as a physical extension of Dean’s humanity than any weapon ever could.  And as long as he has Cas, he has everything that he needs.

He takes another moment to revel in Cas’s stolid, strong presence all around him before refocusing on the task and the target in front of them.

“Easy on the grip,” Dean starts, and Cas joins in, their voices uniting in the still air of the bunker’s firing range, “Deep breath, aim, and---”

_Fire._

**Author's Note:**

> If it were not for @FortLauderTales, this fic would be nothing more than a dusty relic sitting in my Google Docs and it certainly wouldn't have half the heart or so many cogent truths about the Cas and Dean relationship dynamic.
> 
> Not only did @FortLauderTales beta the everloving fuck out of this, and help me rewrite, and make connections, and soothe my terrible rages, she was also the recipient of what seemed like hundreds of Unsolicited Fic Pics, so please, send her your thoughts and warmest regards. She's a hell of a teammate, and a hell of a writing wife (we're registered at Ao3, send us all your Destiel angst).
> 
> Also:  
> https://www.boredpanda.com/carved-totems-avocado-stone-faces/


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